HUMAN(KIND): A 5-Day Devotional on KindnessНамуна

Beautiful, Imperfect Kindness

At a church service a while back, I was standing in the front row next to the man who married my husband and me. He and his wife had recently journeyed a tough and largely public road in their marriage, but here we were, standing side by side in worship at the foot of the cross that towered above us onstage. 

I’d had a particularly tough day and was finding it hard to focus. The burden was wearing on me, a black woman in a predominantly culturally white church who needed to show up with strength. I was weak. I was especially tired that day. 

But in the middle of the worship service, this man leaned over to me and said, “Ashlee, I know that most of these people will never understand the cross you’ve had to bear. But I see you—and God sees you. And he loves you.” 

This man, this white man with a thick South African accent, summed up what humankindness means to me. 

We all have burdens we’ve had to shoulder in life—circumstances that were hard to carry, that we never thought we’d live through. Some will never understand us, no matter how hard we try to tell our stories or justify our positions. 

But if we’re willing to release some of ourselves for the sake of another in the spirit of radical kindness, to let go of power, control, or other lesser gods that we’ve been gripping so tightly, with enough attention, care, and love, we can still acknowledge the complexity and sacredness of one another’s lives, even if we never understand the whole story. 

We can choose to see one another, to invite proximity and share space. We can listen and learn. We can take heart in knowing that God sees us, and because of his loving-kindness toward us, we are able to grip tightly to a worth and identity defined in him, loving one another in ways beyond our own human strength and ability. And that loving, radical kindness, if we choose to accept and pursue it, will be what binds us, beautiful and imperfect, together again and again and again. 

When has someone’s unexpected kindness had a powerful effect on you? In what ways did you see God’s kindness in that person’s actions or words?